The moment my life changed, I wasn’t skydiving or climbing Everest or even doing charity work, changing the lives of the less fortunate. I was in my cubicle. It’s a fair reflection of my less than exciting life but I don’t regret it.

If I wasn’t at my cubicle, I wouldn’t have met Him again.

Him was Rick Brunt. As I was looking at my files, I sensed a presence behind me. I looked back and there he was; the former boyfriend that I cheated on. First thing that struck me was how different he looked.

Gone were the athletic body and clean-shaven face. In their place was a slightly plump bearded man with a look of surprise on his face. I didn’t know how to greet him. After all, he broke up with me the moment he found out I was cheating on him with a player on our college’s basketball team. But he had no such problem.
He shouted “Emily” loud enough that the whole floor could hear and offered me his hand to shake. We talked and, okay, flirted. It was amazing, as if we never broke up in bad circumstances. He offered me dinner and I agreed.

The next night, we had dinner at The Veil. I thought it was a weird choice at first but agreed because I had wanted to visit the restaurant. A Middle-Eastern restaurant that had sprung up recently, it had the hook that all the waitresses wore veils. According to the web, their waitresses changed their attire almost everyday. One day, they could be serving customers in niqabs and the next in Hello Genie costumes. Seeing their waiting crowd, it was a hook that worked.

Now there were a few things no dinner date could do without. The food of course, but another thing no good dinner date could do without was laughter. Without laughter… well, it was just incomplete. On that note, the date between us was a great success. We hadn’t met each other for years but were soon engaged in the same witty banter we had when we were together. I was glad. I didn’t want to end things the way they did but Brunt said he was grateful it did.

As we talked, he told me what he had been doing since we broke up. Brunt had traveled after college and while in the UAE, he converted to Islam. He was known as Salim Al’Tusk now and worked for the Sun Horizon Company, a company infamous in the country for imposing a strict dress-code on female employees and for not having any women employed in any position above clerical level.

As shocking as that was, I was glad to see that Salim was the same person as Rick Brunt. His name might had changed, but Salim Al’Tusk was the same jovial guy who cracked silly sci-fi jokes and quoted TV catchphrases.

At the end of the dinner, he paid the bill and I was shocked to discover the amount. When he said that his place was nearby and offered me a visit, I couldn’t say no. I wouldn’t say it was pity or an obligation, but he had spent so much money I couldn’t turn him down.

His place really was nearby and 20 minutes after we left The Veil, I was in his living room. I felt like I was in another world. There was a strong smell of incense in the air and the room was dominated by a huge soft Persian carpet. There were also no tables or chairs in the living room. Several pillows of various sizes were placed at one side of the carpet and though it seemed strange, I found lounging on the carpet while hugging the pillows to be very relaxing and comfortable.

Salim bought out a tea set and as we drunk the tea, we began to talk once again. Laughter filled the room and one thing led to another. Soon we were kissing and cuddling. I half-thought we were going to do it there but Salim lifted me up and carried me to the bedroom. He may not look like an athlete anymore but he still had the power of one.

Once inside the bedroom, I discovered that his bedroom also had Middle Eastern décor. There was a king-sized bed with two red Middle Eastern rugs on either side of it. The walls were purple and the floor had the look of dark hardwood. There was even a Middle Eastern looking trunk place at the end of the bed.

My look at his bedroom ended there as Salim placed me gently on the bed. Kisses followed before we began to take our clothes off. He quickly slipped on protection and we began in earnest.

I have to admit it was easily the best fuck I ever had. Salim always had size, but now it also came with skill. His thrusts were hard and brutal, and I was wonderfully helpless beneath him. I had my orgasm the same time he did and after that, we just lay there in bed. Salim had definitely improved on his technique since college.

The next morning I said goodbye, silently hoping to see him again. After an afternoon of fitful waiting, he finally called and we arranged to meet that night. A movie and a dinner later, we were back at his place again. You can guess what happened next.

Before I knew it, we were in a relationship again. We met almost everyday for dinner and then sex at his place. More than a few times Salim made dinner, which was a huge surprise. In college, his cooking was terrible but nowadays he could open a restaurant. On days when dinner was at his place, a low table would be brought out and placed on the carpet of the living room. Food would be served on it. We would sit on the carpet, have our dinner and talk. After dinner and washing up, which we would do together, we would watch TV while resting on the beanbags. Salim laughed when I asked about the pillows and corrected me on what they were called. After TV, it would be a night of mind-blowing sex.

This went on for about two months and in that time, I began to know Salim again. In many ways, he was the same person, but in others I could see the change in him. He was a Muslim and followed a sect called the Tibyss. I never heard of them but then I knew little about the religion. All I knew was what was on the news but Salim assured me he followed their religious doctrine closely. However he didn’t try to impose his views on me and I honestly didn’t much cared about his religion.

What I was really interested in was the sex and his home. Salim’s flat was a three room apartment with a small kitchen, a living room and two bedrooms, one of which was always locked. The whole place had Middle Eastern décor and was amazingly clean. I thought all those years traveling the world had made Salim domestic but I was wrong.

I was very wrong.

Remember where I was when I first met Salim at the beginning of this story? I was in my office and he was there because he was helping to finalize a takeover of my company by Sun Horizon. It was a surprise because no one knew the owners were looking to sell, but as time went on everyone in the office knew the deal was going through. We would soon be part of the infamous Sun Horizon Holdings.

The joke in the office soon became one where women had nothing to do but be covered up in veils and serving coffee. More than a few of the women started to prepare their resignation letters, but I was not one of them. I had known Salim for a long time and he seems to be still an okay guy so I thought it was likely other guys in Sun Horizon would be similar to him.

As the takeover deal began to come about, one night while we were lounging on the carpet watching Netflix, I found myself asking Salim about the changes and work conditions that would be placed on female employees of the company. He thought about the matter for a second before saying he was the wrong person to ask. He was a finance guy and it would be better if I asked a woman that was currently working for Sun Horizon. When I asked if he could introduce me to someone, he said he would be more than happy to.

I could ask his wives about what it’s like to be working in Sun Horizon.

It was a bolt out of the blue. Salim never said he was married and while I never asked, I couldn’t help but feel betrayed. I stood up and screamed at him but all I got was a smile. That was when I understood this was revenge. He had wanted to hurt me for what happened in college and when I accursed him of this, he happily admitted as much.

He said that at first that was the plan but as time went on, he found that he really liked having me around. It was fun talking to me like when we were both younger. He was a piece of work, and I told him I felt sorry for his wife for marrying someone who would betray her just for a stupid revenge.

That was when he surprised me again. Salim said he had two wives and both of them knew about me. I didn’t believe him and when I told him as much, he offered to prove it to me. That was when he asked if I wanted to meet them.

I stood in shock as he then stood up and walked to the room that was always locked. Salim dug up a key from his pants and knocked on the door three times. He said he was coming in and unlocked the door. He opened it and with a wave of his arm, invited me to enter.

I looked inside and saw that the room was very plain. Unlike the rest of the flat that was tastefully decorated with Middle Eastern furniture, this room had almost nothing. There were a few books on the floor, a rundown wooden cupboard and an exercise bike in one corner, but outside these there was nothing. No carpets, no tables, no chairs; even the window was blocked.

Only two things caught my eye; two pieces of clothes that were on the floor. It took my mind a moment to process and Salim took this second to shout out a command. The moment I heard him said “Stand”, the two pieces of clothes began to rise. As they stood up, I understood that they were burqas. Two women wearing shuttlecock blue burqas were standing in front of me.

My shock must have been written on my face because Salim began to explain. The two women standing in front of me were his wives and they had always known about me. Every time we came back here to have sex they had been in this room. In fact, they were the ones who cleaned the flat and made dinner for us. They could even hear us if we were loud.

I didn’t know how to react and as I stood there like a fool, Salim told his wives I had questions about what it was like to be looking in Sun Horizon. He told them to answer every question I had. I began with one not about work.

I asked them why they didn’t stop us. I then asked them why they allowed Salim to treat them this way. One of them answered me. She told me as wives, they were there to serve their husband and to do whatever they could to make him happy. If that meant helping him seduce a whore, then it would be their duty, desire and honor to do so. I reeled from being called a whore but could not find a way to defend myself. Salim did it for me.

Salim calmly admonished his wife for being so disrespectful to a guest and ordered her to apologize to me. His wife immediately melted to the floor and I realized she was kneeling. She was kneeling and bowing her head to the ground in front of me and had been doing that when Salim and I first entered the room. Not for the first time, I didn’t know how to react and Salim took the lead.

He ordered his wife to stand and told me to ask away. My mind was a blank. The situation was so surreal I just didn’t know what to say. Salim then decided to “help”. He told his wives I must be uncomfortable speaking to two people wearing burqas. He ordered them to take them off.

Both his wives did so immediately. They flipped their burqas over their heads and I saw their faces for the first time. Neither of them was wearing any clothes beneath their burqa. No shirt, no blouse, no skirt, and no pants, but they weren’t naked. Both of them were wearing white adult-sized diapers and around each necks was a black collar with a ring attached to it. However, what really stuck me was their faces.

On both cheeks of their face was a tattoo. On their right cheek was a tattoo of the Venus symbol, while on the left was a tattoo of the name Salim Al’Tusk. My head spun at the sight and I did the only thing I could.

I turned and fled out of the house.

After what happened at his place, I spent the rest of the week avoiding Salim. It wasn’t difficult. The asshole didn’t even tried to call me. I still saw him a few times in the office but even then, he treated me as if I didn’t exist. I was yesterday’s news.

It suited me just fine.

It also meant that when my co-workers began to ask questions, I didn’t have to hold back. I hadn’t announced the fact that we were going out but word gets around and almost everyone knew we had been seeing each other. When they saw the sudden coldness between us, people started to ask questions. So I did the only thing I could; I told the truth.

I told everyone Salim was an ass who had played me along even though he already had two wives at home. I didn’t tell them about me cheating on him in college of course, but then I also didn’t tell them he made his wives help him seduce me so in my mind, it was about even. By the end of the week everyone knew about how badly he had treated me. Most of the female employees were going to resign anyway but after word spread about me and Salim, almost every female in the company, including me, got their resignation letters ready.

When the new week came around, we were told there would be an engagement conference by Sun Horizon for all the female employees of the company. They were going to try to pitch the company to us but it was a waste of time. Most of us had already made up our minds. At least that was the thinking everyone had when we entered the auditorium.

Auditorium D was on the fourth floor of our building and it was relatively big. It could hold up to 80 people but for some reason, we were told each conference was given to only about thirty of us at a time. I didn’t know why because you would think it would had been easier and faster for Sun Horizon to have more girls at each conference. It would also be less expensive.

When I went through the entrance, the first thing I noticed was the food at the back of the auditorium. Coffee, tea, and various finger-foods were available for us and four veiled women were standing there, asking us to relax before the start of the conference. They were clearly female employees of Sun Horizon and they got us curious.

They were wearing a black long-sleeved robe that covered them from the neck down to their feet. It was wide and totally in line with the Islamic thinking that female clothes should not be figure hugging. The robes also had a hood that the women pulled up to cover their heads. Their face were covered with a niqab and with their hands covered by black gloves, I couldn’t see any part of their face or body.

A thought came to my mind and I wondered how it felt to be totally covered like that. It must be so mysterious and exotic. I stopped the thought right there. Where the hell did that came from? The thought was so funny I had to mentally laugh at myself. I decided to take my mind off the women.

There was free food and drinks available so that was easy. Most of the girls joined me while a few tried to speak to the four veiled women. However, outside of some polite small talk, they refused to say anything of substance and asked the girls to try the food and drinks while we waited for the conference to start. It was during this waiting time that I smelt the strange air inside the auditorium.

I had been inside the auditorium before and the air was different from usual. However it also smelled somewhat familiar. After a short while, I realized the smell was similar to what I smelled at Salim’s home. I guess the guys at Sun Horizon must really like their incense.

After about 30 minutes a man walked up to the stage at the front of the auditorium. He was short, fat, and looked like he had never exercised for a day in his life. I looked at him as he walked up the stage and the first thought that came was that he was a fat bearded nerd. He stopped when he reached the center of the stage and looked at us. If you asked me why, I couldn’t tell you, but at that moment, he looked like he owned the stage. A moment ago he looked like a joke, now he just looked imposing. I fought an urge to look at the ground and instead looked straight at him.

It was a mistake.

On top of the stage, he looked down on us with a sneer. With a condescending voice, he spoke into the microphone and told all the girls to put down the food and sit down as the conference is going to start.

Instead of getting mad, I was embarrassed. We were here for an engagement conference but instead I was stuffing myself full of food and drinks. I quickly put down my drink and rushed to the front of the auditorium. My only out was the fact that everyone beside me looked just as embarrassed as I was.

As the man started speaking, I found myself sitting quietly in my seat with my hands on my lap and my head was bowed low. I didn’t even realize what I was doing till I heard the man say in passing the sight in front of him was what Sun Horizon was looking for. Women with their heads hung low in respect to men.

A fire was lit inside me and my head shot up. All around me, the rest of the girls did the same. It was as if we were in a daze and had all suddenly awoken. The man smiled on the stage and I found him infuriating. It was as if he was playing with us. He then said that there was a video he wanted us to see and left the stage.

The auditorium had a huge screen and as the video started, I found myself falling into a daze again. Honestly, I didn’t remember what was on the video, it was that boring. All I remember was that the video had a lot of bright lights and some soothing music in the background. Yet although I didn’t know the details of the video, I strangely knew what was shown. The video showcased Sun Horizon’s deal to us girls.

Anyone still under contract would have the option of resigning from the company while those who stayed would keep drawing their current salary but would be “reassigned” to roles more in keeping with the Sun Horizon culture. The video was very upfront with the fact that no girl would be employed in any executive position after the takeover and being a secretary was the highest position a girl could hope for in the company. Also, anyone who stayed till the end of their contract would also be offered a contract extension but with a new, lower salary more in keeping with their job scope.

When the video was done, the man came up to the stage again and I was once again struck by how bad he looked. You would think Sun Horizon would have sent someone with more PR and HR skills to sell their company to their future employees. It was then that the thought struck me that Sun Horizon might not be aiming to keep us. As the man droned on, the thought played in my head and began to make more and more sense.

My suspicion then became confirmation when the man told the four Sun Horizon female employees to come up to the stage. The girls in the crowd began to murmur among themselves but my eyes were stuck to the women. The camera displayed the women on the video screen as they stepped up to the stage with their heads bowed.

The man said this was standard walking position prescribed in the Sun Horizon Girl Employee Handbook. Girls were only allowed to walk with their head bowed. The four girls stopped behind the man and stood facing the crowd in a straight row.

The man told the crowd to remember the position the girls were holding. While waiting from orders from men, their feet must be shoulder length apart, with their hands clasped at the small of their back, and their eyes must be downcast to the ground between their feet. They must maintain this position to mark themselves as respectful, submissive women. The man then turned to the women behind him and ordered them to kneel.

They did so immediately. It was surreal and the auditorium fell silent. The women on stage fell to their knees with a grace I would have never thought possible. It looked to me as if their upper body didn’t move an inch but they fell to their knees in slow motion. When it was done, their basic position still hasn’t changed. Their hands were clasped at the small of their back, and their eyes were cast to the ground between their feet. Only now, it looked as if their knees and not their feet were shoulder length apart.

How did they do that? I wondered to myself and the next question that immediately came to my mind was whether I could be able to do something like that. Wait, what? I opened my mouth in shock. I was going to resign. What was I doing even thinking about something like that?

Hoping to put my mind out of that line of thought, I focused on the only thing I could; the speech of the man on the stage. He was now talking about the demerit system Sun Horizon used for female employees. Anyone who got 25 demerits in a month would have her pay cut, but anyone who got less than 15 in a month would get a bonus of at least 10% of her monthly pay. The girl with the least amount of demerits for the month would get a bonus of up to 50% of her monthly pay. A few of the girls started murmuring again at this stage. The potential pay increase could be very important to some of them.

The man continued without a thought about his audience. He mentioned that the girls would be assigned a daily supervising officer, or a DSO. This would be a male working on the same floor and the DSO would be the girls’ superior for the day. This duty was to be served on a rotating schedule among the men and he made no bones about the fact this was to ensure that every man in the office would be superior to every women in the same office.

Then came the coup de grace. The man told us about the “morning greeting”.

The four women stood and spilt up to stand around the man, two to his left and two to his right. Together they turned to face him, dropped to their hands and knees and shouted, “Welcome Sir! This girl wishes you a good day at the office!”

The man explained that this was the position and greeting all girls of the company must make every morning. We would arrive earlier than the men and as the men arrived for work, we would be in this position and greet the men with wishes for a good day at the office.

You could hear a pin drop in the auditorium. We were all stunned. They expected us to be in this humiliating position every morning for our male co-workers. Are they crazy? This confirmed my thought that Sun Horizon didn’t want us. They wanted all the girls gone; why else would they have a presentation like this?

The conference ended soon after. I remembered there was another video we had to sit through but don’t ask me what it was about. By then, all of us girls were like mindless drones, we just wanted out of there.

The rest of the day also passed in a fog. I’m sure I ordered takeout and drove home as usual but again, don’t ask me how I did any of those stuff. I don’t remember anything. The only thing I do remember was what happened that night. That night I slept and when I woke, I opened my eyes… and I couldn’t see.

My sight was blurred like there was something in front of me. I stood up and there was a weight on my head. Strangely, I felt great. It just felt right. I felt like I was different and I didn’t know why.

I saw someone in front of me and I started to walk slowly towards him. As I got closer, I got used to the blur in front of me. I could make out the small details my vision provided and the person in front of me was wearing a blue outfit. We stood before each other for what felt like hours before I felt the need to reach out. I needed to see the person in front of me. For some reason, I raised my hands and my vision cleared.

I was standing in front of a giant mirror and the person I saw was me. I was wearing a burqa and I had just flipped it over my head. Below the burqa, I was totally naked. Not only that, I looked happy. I looked contented. I flipped the burqa back over my head and felt a peace I had never felt before.

It just felt right.

I woke up then. My breathing was hard and I knew what I wanted. My hands went between my legs and I masturbated. As usual, I formed a mental image of what I was doing. I thought of myself in the burqa and of the conference I had seen earlier in the day. I imagined myself bowing, kneeling and serving the men and my hands were soon filled with my juices. I came and had to put my pillow over my mouth as I screamed.

I never did that. I never screamed. In fact, usually I wasn’t even all that loud when I came but today was different. This was something else. This was something beyond my control. As my body was wrecked by joy, I thought of something I never imagined.

I was going to enjoy working in Sun Horizon.

* * *

The day after the conference, I marched into the office and informed our HR manager I was going to take the deal from Sun Horizon. Sylvia, my HR manager, was a very bemused person by the end of the day because I was not alone. Not even close.

By the end of the day, most of the girls in the company joined me in signing on to Sun Horizon. By the end of the week, over 80% of the girls had agreed to join Sun Horizon. To say this was surprising was an understatement. At a meeting of all the girls who were willing to join, Sylvia openly admitted that she thought Sun Horizon would be lucky to get 50% of the girls. She then uncharacteristically joked that this shows how little a girl like her knows. We all laughed at the joke.

According to Sylvia, the takeover was a done deal and Sun Horizon would make a public announcement in two weeks’ time. During this period, Sun Horizon would implant some changes in the office and any girl who changed her mind could approach her. I would admit to being anxious at these proposed changes but to their credit, Sun Horizon tried to make the transition as smooth as possible.

First they install air filters in the building that gave off the same smell as what they had in the auditorium. Then they announced that from then on, all girls must address all males as “sir”. They also encouraged the men to address all females as “girls”, no matter what position the girl currently held.

At first, it was weird as hell. We had junior male clerks addressed female executives as “girls” while female managers like Sylvia were addressing men working for them as “sir”. It was a soft launch of the new regime and I guess this was Sun Horizon’s way to get everyone used to the fact that gender was more important than positions or capabilities.

However soft it was, the underlining idea of male superiority was unmistakable. What was an order for the girls was framed only as a suggestion for the men, but if you thought people would be questioning and complaining about the unfairness of it all, then you would be wrong.

Such questions just seem unimportant. Every time I tried to seriously think about why I agreed to sign on to Sun Horizon, the problem just went away. By breathing in the air of the office a wave of contentment would come over me. Things were going just as well at home.

At night, my sleep was dominated by dreams of me being in a burka or wearing a niqaab. I would be alone and I would be wearing a burka or niqaab. I could be walking in the streets, in the countryside, or even on a beach but I would be walking alone and looking for something. Most of the time, I would wake up without finding this something but sometimes, I would find what I was looking for... a man.

A man would show up in my dreams and I would have this urge to kneel before him and bow my head to the ground. I would show the man my submission and he would accept me as his slave. The men that showed up in my dreams came from all shapes, sizes, age and ethnicity and I do not know any of them save one: Salim.

In these rare occurrences, Salim would appear with his two wives standing behind him. I would kneel and bow but unlike the other men, he would not accept my submission immediately. Instead, one of his wives would walk to my back, a cane would appear in her hand and she would use it on my body. If I stood up, ran or even moved, Salim would reject me and I would wake up in frustration. If I took the punishment till he was pleased, I would awake feeling refreshed, satisfied and happy.

In some ways, the strange dreams helped me at work. Even though there were two weeks to go before the takeover, the work culture in the office had changed drastically. On paper, the changes by Sun Horizon had been slight but as people put them into practice, things became different. In simple terms, although no one said we had to do it, once the changes happened girls in the office became more submissive to the men.

Girls began to adopt a “speak only when spoken to” rule with the men. If the men asked for something, we reply. If they didn’t, we kept our mouths shut in their presence. Girls began to move around the office with their head down and when a man and a girl crossed each other in the corridor, the girl would move to the side, leaving the center to the man. At least, that’s what happened at first.

I don’t know who started it, but a few days after the practice began, girls started to stop and turned to face the wall. Only when the men passed them did the girl began to move off. If the men didn’t move, the girl would crabwalk along the wall pass the men. Only after passing them would she turned and walked normally.

It also became normal for the girls to get coffee for the men. The man, usually seated at his cubicle, would turn to the girl nearest to him, and ordered the coffee. No matter what the girl was doing, she would drop it and go get the coffee for him. This quickly became the norm in the office, and before the first week was out girls would be handling everything the men needed from coffee to photocopying of documents.

Not everything was to the disadvantage of the girls however. As the day of the takeover came nearer and nearer, the company slowly but surely shifted more work to the men. Some men grumbled of course but having a girl at their beck and call largely muted any disagreement they had.

Within the two weeks transition period, this arrangement, work for men and service for girls, became accepted practice within the office. A man stayed in his cubicle and did the work, while the girls would handle any miscellaneous tasks given to them. More than one person in the office mentioned that it was as if every 3-4 men in the office were sharing a secretary between them.

Personally, I thought it was a lot more going on than that. I was serving three men in the office during this transition period and felt a joy whenever one of them told me to do something. This sense of joy did seem strange to me but at the same time, I didn’t really care about it. I mean, why mess with a good thing?

The girls who refused to sign on with Sun Horizon were of course horrified at the developments in the office and they protested with management. However since they were less than 20% of the female workforce and they were all leaving within two weeks, their complains were ignored.

As the days passed and the day of the official takeover came near and near, I became more and more excited. I couldn’t wait for the day when I could only wear the niqaab and greet my male co-workers on my hands and knees. To my slight surprise, I wasn’t the only one.

Every other weekend, we girls would frequent a bar where we would unwind with drinks, dance and music. That weekend, after a few tequilas, one of the girls spoke about the dream she had been having. In the dream, she was walking in a grass field and it was windy. She was wearing a thin transparent veil when a strong gust of wind came and blew her veil away.

Her veil was gone and she felt as if a part of her soul was too. She frantically ran after the veil but the wind would always keep it just out of her reach. After a long chase, she would kneel and cry in frustration. The wind would die down and the veil would fall to the ground. If she stood, the wind would pick up again. To get the veil, she would have to crawl to it. Sometimes she did it on her hands and knees; other times, she would crawl on her belly. She would crawl to the veil and grabbed it. With her veil in hand, she would put it on and only then would she felt whole. Only then, when it was safely over her head, would she feel complete.

I was alarmed when I heard her story. It was different but at the same time eerily similar to my own. Then another girl started to talk about her dreams, and it was as if a dam had burst. Soon everyone was exchanging stories about their dreams and the veils they were wearing in them. It was scary that we all had similar dreams but at the same time, strangely comforting. I was not alone and I was not the only looking forward to the day when I would be wearing the niqaab. All the girls were now openly admitting that they were also looking forward to the day. I found that I was not a strange weirdo. I was part of a group of women who had the same dreams and aspirations.

It was a very comforting thought to have.

I was even happier a few days later when Sylvia announced that Sun Horizon had sent over our uniforms and we girls would be sent for the fitting. It was less than a week before Sun Horizon would publicly announce the takeover and our company acceptance of their bid. The day of the takeover was coming and I couldn’t wait for it to arrive.